Danyal Özdüzenciler is the co-founder and CEO of Capsa AI, an automated operating system for the private equity industry.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Özdüzenciler discusses working in an area you really understand, prioritising the right tasks and disconnecting from work and technology.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
My advice: Build in a space you deeply understand—where you’ve spent over 10,000 hours of experience, personally or professionally. Starting a business as a first-time founder is challenging enough; don’t make it harder by entering an unfamiliar market without a network to leverage.
Also, be mindful of the commitment. Being a founder often means 90-100 hour workweeks and significant sacrifices in your personal life. To sustain this, you need to be absolutely obsessed with the problem you’re solving. Entrepreneurship isn’t something you can do halfway—it’s an all-in journey that requires resilience, passion, and unwavering focus....